Lazy NYC restaurant wants you to help create its menu with Instagram

A downtown New York restaurant is asking patrons to upload photos of their meals to Instagram to help craft a visual menu for undecided diners and those interested in trying out the establishment. The inventive idea is fun and interactive, but it's hard for us to encourage people to keep taking photos of their food and uploading it to the Web.

Full disclosure: My family owns a restaurant in New York City and the cost of designing, printing, and distributing menus are a lot more than just clicking a few things on the Internet and waiting for things to ship. You have to pick a design that is functional, beautiful, representative of your facility, and most importantly, inviting. Then, it’s just a matter of hoping new customers are curious and kind enough to stop by, and luring them to come back for a delicious experience. So when I heard that a new Latin American restaurant opened up and is crowdsourcing its patrons to make its menu for them, I can’t tell if this is sheer cost-cutting laziness or pure genius.

Comodo, located in the SoHo neighborhood of downtown New York, came up with the idea when it noticed the food porn Instagram trends amongst its customers. You’ve likely seen this happen: People come in, get excited by the food they’ve ordered, and take artsy shots of the plate so their Instagram followers can be presumably jealous by what these guys are having for dinner. Comodo also realized this was a good way for the public to get a relatively accurate representation of the restaurant, so it start encouraging patrons to continue doing what they’re doing, then adding the hashtag #ComodoMenu to the photos.

The result? Ideally, a list of menu items, the names, what they look like, and the price. This is helpful for people considering trying the restaurant, but wants to know the price points, portion sizes, and an exact visual of what they should expect. Of course, this isn’t the only source of menu for Comodo; the restaurant has real physical ones as well for those who aren’t on Instagram.

So far, the hashtag and three-week-old restaurant has garnered 49 photos, but unfortunately, not all the photos are food from the restaurant, and most people forget to mention what the dish is called or how much it costs. Still, the idea is inventive and interactive, and it’s a cheap and easy way to create social buzz. The photos also help to show what menu items are popular judging by how often they show up under the hashtag, and can then be referred to as one of the recommended dishes at Comodo.

At the same time, us Digital Trends writers aren’t particularly thrilled with the whole food porn trend, so we’re pretty torn on encouraging other restaurants to follow suit. Hey, at least if you’re gonna do it, do it with a purpose and help a local business along the way. And businesses, if you’re gonna hop on the trend, you might want to provide some incentives for the patrons giving you free publicity! If it’s anything we can help promote, it’s symbiosis.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

LA restaurant offers discount to diners who give up their phone during meal

A restaurant in Los Angeles is offering a 5 percent discount to diners willing to hand over their handset for the duration of the meal. The owner says he wants people to connect again (with the person sitting opposite them rather than with someone in another part of the country).

There was a time when visiting a restaurant with a friend meant enjoying a tasty meal together and having an engaging conversation. Thanks to the proliferation of smartphones, however, it’s now also about texting a friend between the starter and the main, taking a call from a co-worker mid-meal, tweeting a photo of the dessert, and firing off an email during the post-dinner coffee. Of course, a review of the eatery posted online even before you’re out the door is also obligatory.

If both of you are at it, no one gets hurt, but it kind of defeats the whole point of going to a restaurant with a friend, does it not?

Discount

One restaurant owner/chef in Los Angeles has decided to encourage people to once again enjoy the company of their fellow diners by offering a 5 percent discount on their check if they hand over their phone before the first course is served.

Southern California radio station KPCC reported that Mark Gold, who runs Eva restaurant on Beverly Boulevard, is hoping to create a more homely atmosphere by giving patrons the chance to enjoy their meal without the possibility of a handset interrupting the flow of the dining experience.

“For us, it’s really not about people disrupting other guests. Eva is home, and we want to create that environment of home, and we want people to connect again,” Gold told KPCC. “It’s about two people sitting together and just connecting, without the distraction of a phone, and we’re trying to create an ambience where you come in and really enjoy the experience and the food and the company.”

Gold added that so far just under half of the diners visiting his restaurant have taken up the offer, though he failed to mention whether anyone had broken into a cold sweat halfway through the main course, begging to have their phone returned.

Phone Stack

Earlier this year another Californian man, Brian Perez, also had an idea to get diners looking at each other again, instead of at their handsets, creating a game called Phone Stack. The idea is that after taking your seat, everyone places their mobile in the center of the table. The first person who grabs their device during the meal, regardless of the reason, has to take care of the check.

How do you feel about Mark Gold’s idea of taking your phone away for the duration of the meal? Could you handle it? Or does the thought of being separated from your handset for even just a few minutes fill you with dread?

[Image: Shebeko / Shutterstock]

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Google buys Frommer’s, plans to merge with Zagat?

Google has purchased the Frommer's travel guide brand for an undisclosed sum, and may be planning on merging it with another recent purchase, restaurant ratings guide Zagat.

Google looks set to make major inroads into both the online review and listing business and also the world of content publishing with the news today that it has purchased Frommer’s, one of America’s leading travel guide publishers. According to reports, the famous brand may soon find itself paired with an equally well-known name – and fellow Google subsidiary.

The deal was announced by Frommer’s current owners John Wiley and Sons earlier today, with the publisher issuing a statement that explained that Frommer’s as a brand no longer aligned with its business strategy, and that the sale was the beginning of an offloading of such off-topic brands that would also include Webster’s New World and Cliff’s Notes (Google has not been linked with either property as yet, but you have to imagine that Cliff’s Notes would be a tempting addition at the very least). Wiley announced that the brand would be sold in March of this year. While it’s unknown how much Google has paid for Frommer’s, it’s widely believed to be less than $66 million, the highest possible amount that would avoid automatically triggering investigations from antitrust authorities.

The Frommer’s brand has been around since 1957, when it began with the guidebook Europe on $5 A Day by Arthur Frommer. Fifty-five years later, Frommer is still writing for the company – He started blogging to celebrate the brand’s fiftieth anniversary in 2007 – and the line has grown to encompass more than 350 books across 14 different series, including those produced via partnerships with MTV and the For Dummies series. It’s said to be unknown at this time whether or not Google will keep the guidebooks in print, or choose to make the entire brand digital, but common sense – and the amount of money available from the print editions – would suggest that a purely online Frommer’s is still at some far point in the future.

That said, the purchase offers a lot of possibilities for Google. Although the company has announced that it has not made any decisions as yet about what to do with the brand, it’s widely believed that the Frommer’s brand will be combined with that of restaurant review and ratings brand Zagat Survey, which Google purchased almost a year ago. In an official statement about the purchase, Google said that “the Frommer’s team and the quality and scope of their content will be a great addition to the Zagat team,” adding that those within the company “can’t wait to start working with them on our goal to provide a review for every relevant place in the world.” Things might not be quite so straight forward, however. “Our commitment is to keep things as they are today,” Google’s Bernado Hernandez – who works with the Zagat brand – explained to the Wall Street Journal, “and once we combine operations, we’ll better know what the future looks like.”

Other possibilities that are open to the company include merging Frommer’s information about local businesses with Google+ listings and Google Maps, augmenting its existing travel booking service, or being used to sell travel-related ads via Google’s own ad service.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com